Tili Tili Bom (An Avengers fanfic)

Chapter sixteen

The rest of the day is uneventful. I go check on Natasha, who tells me that "she's feeling better," and "completely fine," and "Charlotte, stop touching it, I told you I'm- ow!"

I don't believe a word.

She shoos me out, telling me to get something to eat around seven. I don't really know what to do- I sneak past everyone, into the kitchen. I hear them arguing about the HYDRA agent, but I've learned my lesson about listening. I grab some triangles covered in red and yellow out of the fridge and smuggle them back upstairs. "Back so soon?" Natasha asks as I walk in. I nod silently as a screen on the far side of the room lights up. She sighs. "Are you okay?" She asks me, trying to meet my eyes. I don't look at her. Broken, broken, broken. "I'm fine." I yawn in spite of myself as she selects something on the screen. "Do you want to watch a movie? Do you want to stay in here tonight? Are you sure you're okay?" I nod to each question, a story playing out that I should probably understand. I'm too preoccupied. At HYDRA, you're perfect... Here, you're frail... What have you done...? A warm, gritty brown filters into my mind- somebody is singing about a castle on a cloud. Broken. Fractured. Wrong. "I need to go," I tell Natasha.

She pauses the movie. "You said you were sleeping in here." That's not what I meant, but her voice is a command. "I changed my mind," I tell her. "Dobroy nochi." I don't look back. The other floors are empty- it's late. I'm not surprised. My room is dark, and I tell Jarvis to raise the temperature. He asks me if I'm okay as well. "Yes." No. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not okay. Stop asking. I want to scream. "Yes." He's gotten the vibrating blanket- it's warm and fleecy, little discs sewn into the inside. I change quickly and drag it under the huge bed with me. I shiver. It's too cold, it's too cold, it's too much like the pod. I say nothing, close my eyes.

"Charlotte." The voice is a sound, close in the darkness. I am curled around a gun, but I raise my head. "Racks!" I could sob with happiness. "You're here!" He pull me close, and for a second I'm shielded. I wrap him in a hug, but something sticks to my hand. I look at it: it's melted metal, somehow still cool. "Racks?" I draw back and bite down on a shriek: his arm is melting, revealing circuits and boarding. It continues up, beginning to disintegrate his flesh at the grafting point. It sizzles as it touches the ground, and I fall onto my back. "What did you do?" He asks me. I want to say I'm sorry, that I didn't do anything, to help, but he reaches for me with what's left of his metal arm. "What did you do to me?" The melting continues over his body, His ruined face trying to ask me a question I can't answer. I scream, horrified, and he is gone, and someone new kneels in front of me.

She raises her head, blood trickling like tears from hollow blue eyes. "End it," she begs. "Please." Her arms are wrapped in chains frosted over in blue ice. And somehow I know she is me- her blond hair is long and bloody, a crown of violence. This is the queen, the killer, the executioner. She looks at me, empty to the core. I am still holding the gun. I look at it for a second, her voice rising. "Do it, do it, do it, do it!" I look her in the eyes and empty the clip. Nothing. She doesn't blink, but she stops screaming. "Please," she says, exhausted, and the chains snap, and she lunges for my throat. "I'm sorry,  I'm sorry, so sorry, sorry," and I can't breathe, and I can't breathe-!

I wake up gasping for air. Jarvis is telling me it's okay, but I can't hear, and for a second, I feel her fingers around her throat. I roll out from under the bed and kick off the ensnaring blanket. After a moment, I stand. I get out of my room, go to the kitchen. I need water- my throat feels dry where she grabbed it. I rub my eyes, Jarvis' voice fading into the background. "Miss, it's two in the morning, you really..." I go in anyway, grab a cup from earlier. I hear someone cough as I fill it, and whip around to see the Captain. He sits at a round, wooden table, a red mug in front of him. The water from my cup has splashed all over the floor. "Fancy seeing you here," he quips. He's in pajamas- a red shirt and plaid, flannel pants. I look at the floor and mumble an apology. I want to cry. "What's wrong?" He asks me gently. I swallow hard. "Nothing." He nods and pats the chair next to him. "Usually when I'm down here this early, it's because I had a nightmare," he tells me sagely. I put my cup down and sit, tucking the edges of my pajamas under my legs. I'm freezing.

He takes a sip of his drink. "Do you want to talk about it?" I shake my head. He won't understand. I'm too tired to consider that I'm fraternizing with the enemy. He continues on, filling the kitchen with cloudy speech. "Can I tell you about my dream?" I don't respond. "I dream that I'm in a crashing plane, only someone's in it with me. Um, sometimes its my girlfriend, and sometimes it's one of my friends. And the plane's still crashing, and they keep yelling for me to stop." He clears his throat, and I peer at him through my lashes. "But I don't, because my fingers are frozen to the wheel. And then I look back, and they're gone, and I'm all alone again." His voice trembles on the last word. I look at my hands. "I want to go home," I say quietly. My throat feels rough. "I have a safe house in Berlin, and I, um..." I trail off. Racks was supposed to meet me there. The Captain stands up. "Just a sec. I'll grab you some tea, too." I open my mouth to tell him it's okay,and that he really doesn't have to, but he seems determined to finish. "Tell me about the safe house," he coaxes me. I think for a moment. "Um, it's a little apartment, right across the street from a fruit vendor. Sometimes they have pears, sometimes they have berries or plums or apricots." I swallow again. "I was on a mission, and, um, I had to buy some to keep my cover. They were the best thing I'd ever had," I tell him, remembering the apricot exploding into shards of music on my tongue. "Für Elise." The Captain sits back down, handing me my own mug filled with a dark, watery liquid. "It's chai," he tells me.  I take a sip: sweet and dark. It tastes like one of the songs Natasha was playing earlier in the car.

"How's Natasha doing?" I ask him. He shrugs. "She's sleeping in the med bay tonight. Clint insisted," he tells me. He drains his cup. I see his hands shake a little bit. "She'll be alright." I look down and catch a glimpse of his foot. Two toes are missing on the left one, and the spots they should be in are puckered with scars. "What happened?" I ask him. I try to be unintrusive, but I can't hide that I'm curious. Do I spy a balance issue? He laughs a little. "Seventy years in a block of ice- apparently, you get a little bit of frostbite," he tells me ruefully. He stretches. "You should probably get some more sleep." I sit bolt upright. "No! No, that- that's really not necessary." He puts up his hands. "I was going to say we could sit on the couch and watch a movie instead, but..." He may not know what was wrong, but he understands: he's offering me a way out. "Sure," I say, trying to seem uninterested.

He finally (after a saga-worthy battle with the tv) puts on some movie called Lord of the Rings, and I begin to fall asleep. I jolt myself back from the brink several times, unwilling to face the queen. Her words still echo in my ears: I'm sorry. The Captain wraps an arm around my shoulder, in what is supposed a protective manner, but I begin to panic. It's too similar to the Racks from my dream. "Y'okay?" He asks. I gasp, taking in too much air, letting out too little. "Hey. Hey, it's okay. Charlotte, it's okay," he says soothingly. "I'm here. You're safe." I want to tell him that no, I am not safe, that I cannot be safe from myself, but a choked sigh is all that sounds out. "Charlotte, it's going to be alright." I'm so cold, and I can feel his heat through my pajamas. I wrap myself more tightly in his embrace, curling my knees to my chest. For a second, I can believe he's Racks, the real Racks. "Don't leave me," I whisper before to him before sleep claims me.

Racks returns, and this time I run into the darkness. I will not face them again.

I cannot face them again.